Galaxy Brain

Here y'all go:

Hello everyone! After a lot of talk about Recharge as of late, I spent some time to scour mids for any powers that at a glance do not seem easily perma-able. Below is a link to a Google Doc that goes over a total of 139 different powers (though many are grouped into generic categories like 1 for all the Patron Summons, etc) that upon my pass fit the bill for powers with significant base recharge and duration differences. The left-hand columns show the Power Group, Individual Power, Duration, Base Recharge, and the calculation to show how much recharge is needed to perma the power. On the right, I show different combinations of slotting 5 LotG globals, 1-3 lvl 50 IO's, and of course Hasten. On the far right, I have a column for Perma Hasten and beyond until the Recharge Cap. Values in Green show you hit perma or above perma. Bright green is Double-Perma / Stacking, and Yellow signifies you are within 10% of your goal of perma which can vary in effect depending on the power. Enjoy! Link to Sheet

Theres no way that confuse can be considered a soft control nowadays

Disclaimer, when I play max lvl as of late I'm that energy blaster Rocking 320% constant recharge blasting energy torrent and explosive blast Only nova has a KD io in it and I fire that every 27sec or so, the other AoEs rock around 3 sec recharges and I can just fire them back and forth and knock crap everywhere. I actively try to control the KB with hover and angling myself so that knocks go into the ground or against walls, but this is not always viable and I can watch as sometimes rng sends enemies into places that cause team mates to chase because of me using my powers, and I cant reliably control how it works due to said rng outside of nova. If the blasts had consistent knockback, even with the massive recharge I could reliably control it to leverage it for the team using the map, but oh well. So, given how I'm constantly spamming my AoEs and even watching when I mess them up and scatter, would I like for energy blast to be all KD instead? NO The identity for energy blast is to knock people around, just look at Power Push and Nova and how they yeet people with some if the strongest base KBs in the game. What I have a problem with is that you do not consistently get to knock people around without using either your nuke or a ST power that only does KB (essentially), which makes it a dubious pick for a blaster. Otherwise it's all RNG whether your signature effect even comes into play. The other part I'm missing is like, if you do occasionally get "stronger hits" that knock back, they dont really feel stronger aside from having some push to em and they sont really emulate the power shown in the gifs above. There is also no room or incentive to slot for Knockback in... well pretty much any power outside of the KB procs which is unfortunate. If high magnitudes of KB did some sort of bonus it would be worthwhile to slot these powers for that and use the underused KB sets to kill multiple birds with one stone.

There is a key difference here in that the actions you described (sans the intangibles) do not slow down the pace. If you nuke a mob, or take an alpha for somebody else... cool, that is mutually beneficial in the end you you go to the next mob. KB and Intangible directly interrupt you in a way that makes you either have to change course drastically (chase or change target/area completely) or actually wait for the power to wear off, adding another factor to the frustration. People don't care if you Nova and send dead bodies everywhere (well, unless they're a warshade), they only care about the survivors that are flung everywehre that need to be mopped up more slowly than if they were still bunched up. People don't care if you held the enemy before you were able to apply your mez, they care if you caged the enemy and now they cannot do anything but wait for a minute. Toad vs Storm is more akin to a PvP encounter or an EB fight, which would make sense for less KB effect as both you would reckon would have some amount of KB protection.... to a degree. If Toad flung Storm, odds are Storm has KB protection via Hover where she can recover quickly. If Storm used hurricane force winds on Toad and sent him off like Team Rocket? Different story. As for the Hulk, I think this is where we can get into different magnitudes. Here, Hulk knocks back a similarly strong opponent with the Hulkbuster. Tony in this scene takes relatively low magnitude and is not sent too too far and is not down for very long. Another scene vs Thor, he launches Thor with high magnitude KB and he impacts a wall, stunning him for a good while and definitely dealing some bonus damage. Hulk vs a CoH LT (compared to him), the KB defeats him outright. Not all magnitude KB is impactful, but I feel especially high Mag KB should be as that is generally where we see it being annoying when people are flung everywhere vs being flung a few feet.

One thing I have yet to see is the numbers on the current opportunity buffs. Its a cool idea to give them universal stances (Dp/Bio with @General Idiot's proposition would be wild lol), but I have felt for a while that it could be simpler to just combine both modes into one with all the buffs and let either T1 or T2 trigger it upon activation (not upon hit!) of the power.

People hark on Intangible powers for the same reason they do KB: another player altered how they can fight enemies. Whether it is knocking them out of range (of their Melee powers or their AoE), or locking them out of the area in a similar way due to intangible, somebody else messed with what you were trying to do and that is frustrating. Same here, but in a superhero setting, when Storm uses Gust on a bunch of random thugs that ends the fight. If the hero Crane Kicks a guy off a ledge, that ends the fight. If you super-punch a guy into a wall, they are at least dazed against it for quite some time and is usually a stopping point in the fight. In general, "Super" knockback where people are launched 10's of feet instantly is not a 2-sec ordeal, if its less than that its essentially what we see with Knockdown where they bounce down then get back up a short ways away. This part is subjective sure, but I think if it were buffed it would be seen as something more exiting and thematic to counter the times when it is intrusive. I wouldn't even say it is a meta-build concern and more of a "hey, that guy interrupted what I wanted to do" concern which can occur at all levels of play. A group of casual players tackle a mob of enemies, a melee character goes after the boss but then it gets flung down the hall constantly, that could be annoying to them as they have no agency,

The limiting factor is Knockback itself. KB requires more skill to use than other control effects due to having to react to the enemy's new position, or predict where they'll go. Knockdown, and even Knockup, do not have to test this skill for players (or in KU's case not as harshly as they often stay relatively put) while still getting the benefit of taking the enemy out of the fight for a brief animation. Knockback can take them out for slightly longer, or much longer if they get stuck on geometry but that is very risky due to both it being random and the chance that they become untouchable. In general, KD does the same thing KB does without the drawbacks or learning curve. If Energy Blast was suddenly changed to all Knockdown, it would have roughly the exact same mitigation as it does now if you stay at range and keep enemies juggled on their butts. There would be some situations where due to RNG an enemy gets closer and closer than they would have, and times when launching them off geometry could have helped without you needing to give chase, but 93% of the time it would be just as good without the drawback of a learnign curve or the situations where it interacts with other players in a negative manner (whether that be unintentional or not). If there were a way to swap between KB and KD, I would vehemently argue that KB should get something extra to make it a tactical pick over KD since the latter has most of the strength with none of the weaknesses.

This gets into specifics, but it all has to do with what comes after the scatter and the content, as well as the KB powers in question. In general, powers that deal KB *RELIABLY* are less of an issue as the person using it can plan for it, and use it to their and the team's advantage and the team in turn can react to it. A Storm user Gusting everyone against a wall is a non issue and is indeed a helpful form of control. A Storm user spamming gust in different directions on purpose is being a troll. Alternatively, if another character is using some sort of patch to control the situation or the like, knocking them out of it is just bad play if you can control it. Like, why use (Mass KB power) when everyone is already bouncing on an Ice Slick? A player using ST knockback on an enemy in general has dibs on that guy. They are controlling that 1 opponent and if that bothers you, you can try and compete with them for the kill if you wish however that means. A player using ST knockbacks on random enemies just to scatter them about is being obtuse and just causing aggro to themselves and making other players have to pick up their slack in either aggro management or chasing down enemies to defeat them. But then there are two types of AoE KBs that are unreliable and emulate the scatter that "trollish" play can: PBAoE Knockback, and AoEs that have a % Chance to knockback. The former can be controlled by using the power outside of a mob and using it more like a Cone attack, but the nature of them want players to use it while surrounded by enemies, which scatters them to the 4 winds. This is unfortunate as often these are in Melee Sets which then are essentially punished for using a power correctly. The latter by nature is then uncontrolled KB since there is only a chance of it occurring. Not only is this unreliable as a control for the player using it, but in a team setting even if used correctly odds are you are separating a group rather than moving the group. There are examples of KB used very well. There are examples of KB being used incorrectly, and there are examples where the KB powers are seemingly designed to be inconsistent and hard to react to. Yes, when it is inconsistent or used incorrectly it is a "hit to your (team's) DPS", but since it is a player action to cause the KB and outside of your control, or vice versa you're the player with KB powers who cannot control how or when they happen due to RNG, that causes frustration. Sure, other powers may have similar chance of Mez effects but when they go off they don't ask you or others to change your play style in order to re-position or re-target. On the thematic side though, subjectively when I have seen KB in other media it is usually a very significant event. A guy is thrown through an object, or into a wall, or across the room, and they do not get back up for a good amount of time unlike the 2 seconds in CoH. It is usually a finishing maneuver when the hero sweeps through and knocks all the baddies back on their butt, they don't usually get back up! In CoH, many KB powers simply re-position the enemy and are more an inconvenience to them than something debilitating. Which is why I am in favor of attaching more effects to KB to emulate how it is usually portrayed in media.

Its not just DPS. The way several powers work is to have enemies in certain locations for Control, Defense, etc, which KB can disrupt. Given it can be disruptive and there exist directly comparable mechanics that are not disruptive that hold the same benefits, normal KB should be brought up to par to where it is not seen as lesser but as a tactical trade off.

Sorting by size, there are 13 pages of threads with more than 1 page of discussion, meaning there are also 90 pages of 1-page threads... For sanity reasons, lets go through only the last 6 months (November till now). Sorting by Start Date, this gives us 40 pages. This cuts down the size of what we're combing through from 103 > 53 pages (with overlap as some big threads are within the 6 month window). Thoughts @ArchVileTerror?

So, there are currently 2551 topics in the suggestions forum over 103 pages. We need a getting process for what we're looking for... an easy start would be to sort by the biggest threads and see what could be repurposed as "main topics" given the size and discussion. Secondly, I'd say anything with at least 100 topics dedicated to it is an easy shoe in for the master list (thinking aggro cap and instant healing threads) After that, it's a guessing game lol.

No but it sped up the second kick

Im down to help for sure

I'm on the same boat that the pool powers are dubious as-is and need a look, its just that when looking at say.... Stealth, or hell even Flurry vs Hasten, which do you balance towards?

So it's ok that you only have 2-3 pool power picks instead of 4

Because other sets can perma their signature abilities without the same investment, and that seems questionable

There is! For katana at least you bop people with the butt of the sword. Theres also enough sword animations that we could probably just copy paste them with the elemental sword and call it a day, and vice versa for punches or blast animations

I gotchu, it's just the angle you were using has shaky ground based on well... most of the examples listed against it where the fundamentals of the game have indeed changed. I agree with you that it should not be altered in such a way that you now need to opt in to using it. It's just confusing to me that the option presented is always "get rid of it" and hardly ever "let's fix it".

At least give us a sword or first option for each attack

1) Hasten by design doesnt "do anything by itself", that's like saying Build Up doesnt do anything either. 2) I think we need some data on recharge vs duration in general before we eyeball powers

Compared to what it *could* be, it really doesnt.

Both greater swords need a look see

Tinfoil hat: Long rech powers keep you playing longer so the OG devs could make more money And this seems like an interesting challenge, could take a crack at it